


You Win Some, You Lose Some More

by cognitive_error



Category: Everyman HYBRID
Genre: Gore, Implied/Referenced Suicide, poorly executed reiteration theory, takes place following "two thousand three hundred ninety-five" so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-16 14:56:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 9,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15439578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cognitive_error/pseuds/cognitive_error
Summary: the host's thoughts are castlike fishing wire from the reelof his flagging mind





	1. Heaving Guts and Filthy Mutts

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! In case you missed it in the tags, this is set a little after the "two thousand three hundred ninety-five" video and I do touch on the aftermath Vinnie's suicide a little graphically in Chapter Three, I think it is. Anyway, if that can be triggering for you, it may be better to give this story (can I call it that?) a miss. I don't want to cause anyone any harm - this is fiction, so I'd like it to entertain you - not upset you!

There’s nothing like waking up alone in your own head. Nothing like the freeness in your limbs, the natural ease in your movements as you sit up, yawning and blinking sleepily in the pinkish haze of the morning and best of all, you’re doing it all by yourself. No warring minds, no stilted puppet movements. _No strings attached._

Evan knows his brain will catch up in a minute, that his eyes will remember all they’ve seen and his hands will remember all they’ve done but for now he’s just Evan. Feels like he’s overslept by a few hours, sure, head full of cotton wool but that’s all; no black blood coagulating behind his eyes and whispers of decay in his ears. Just Evan.

His back’s a little stiff when he finally stands but that’s because he’s been left slumped against the front wall of the house – and probably all night too, looking at the dew that’s seeping through his Motörhead t-shirt. It plasters the heavy cotton to his skin, does nothing to conceal the parasite’s hard work over the past few years. The breadth of his chest stretches the fabric of his shirt, and here and there veins writhe like snakes beneath the pale skin of his forearms. He lets a choked laugh escape him. If nothing else, being possessed by HABIT is like competing on _American Ninja Warrior_. Five times in a row. On steroids.

Evan wonders if that show’s still airing. It spawned a weekly contest they used to have back before shit got real shitty, clumsily recreating all those stunts in the soft-floored safety of their living room, just him and his boys. Evan and Vinnie and Jeff.

 

 _Jeff_.

 

“Ah, fuck,” he mumbles because his brain’s just catching up and now he feels like he’s been smacked in the chest with a mallet.

 

It’s ironic, really, considering what they did to Jeff.

 

HABIT’s not here now, though, not here to hold him up and Evan’s legs fold like they’re paper, crumple into the dew-soaked grass. He curls in on himself, disintegrates for a few shaky breaths while spears of overgrown green prickle his skin. Smoke stings his eyes and blood wells on his tongue, thick and salty. It makes him gag and spit but the blood sticks to the roof of his mouth and Evan can’t make it go away. The flashbacks that come in pieces like this that are the worst, a halfway point between reality and reliving and nothing to tell him that it’s _not_ real. Part two, vomiting, is second nature; rolling onto knuckles and knees, empty stomach heaving until the eyes confirm thin, clear strands of saliva, and no blood. _No blood._ Evan wipes his mouth with a shaky hand and then he’s gluing himself back together and trying the door. It’s locked. Evan kicks it in a moment of blind frustration, regrets it immediately as pain shoots through his toes and he swears again, resting his face on the coolness of the door’s painted wooden surface. He’s still like that a few moments later when he hears the footsteps inside the house, hesitant and softened by the walls between them.

 

“ _Evan?_ ”

 

He looks up. There’s a face in the window beside the door and Evan’s first thought is that the house must’ve been abandoned, that some squatter’s moved in. But a squatter wouldn’t know his name like that and no matter how long their beard is, hair straggly and bones sharp beneath faded skin, Evan knows that face. He’s not sure if he’s about to laugh or cry but both seem to happen simultaneously as the door opens and he stumbles into the arms of what’s left of his best friend. “Vinnie! It’s me, Vin! It’s me, it’s _Evan_. Christ, what’s happened to you? What did I- it do-”

 

Vinnie pats him on the back carefully and pulls away, cutting off his incoherent rush of concerns. “It’s been a while.”

 

Evan wipes his nose with the back of his hand and attempts a weak smile in return. “Can I come in?”

 

“You don’t need to ask,” Vinnie says. “This is your home.”

 

* * *

 

Evan’s almost surprised by how much the house looks as he remembers it. Sure, some things have been moved around – that table wasn’t here before (he chooses not to notice the reddish trails down the legs) and the couch didn’t have those horizontal slashes across the back of it last time (like someone’s let a very large cat loose into the house, though he knows that can’t be right) – but everything’s overwhelmingly normal. Vinnie’s the only thing that’s changed drastically. Evan watches him digging through the fridge for something to eat, his jersey hanging off his frame. Vinnie’s never been a thin man – not big, sure – but Jeff ( _stab,_ goes Evan’s chest) was always the lean one of the group. Now, Vin’s bordering on emaciated. It’s not even just how skinny he is. There’s this _look_ in his eyes and he’s seen it before but never on Vinnie’s face. It’s stared at Evan off the pages of one of those nature magazines ― a National Geographic, maybe, the eyes of something hollow and hungry like a wild animal that’s had to fight for every scrap of food it’s ever eaten. Vincent Caffarello looks like a wolf and it scares the shit out of him.

 

“Did he keep you fed okay in here?” he asks tentatively, trying to keep his tone light.

 

Vinnie glances up at him with his wolf’s eyes. “You don’t remember?”

 

“Not really.”

 

“Oh.” He pauses, staring vacantly at a whole lot of nothing. “Of course.”  Vinnie lays some slices of bread on the bench and starts spreading butter across them. He’s not wearing his glasses, Evan realises. Maybe that’s what looks off. “The fridge was usually empty but it would leave food lying around sometimes. Things have been a bit… _scarce_ in the last few years. No power, no plumbing, that sort of thing.”

 

Evan frowns and looks up at the ceiling; the light’s definitely on. A lone moth, so odd to see in daylight, flutters around it with typical relentless purposelessness. “But there’s electricity and stuff in the fridge. How did you-”

 

“It did it. Fixed everything up a couple of weeks back and pissed off. I guess that was my reward for everything.”

 

The temperature of the room drops several degrees, cools the silence made by Vinnie’s tone.

 

“Everything?” Evan presses. He fishes back through his memories, trying to place one of Vinnie that coincides with the weight he gives that word.

 

The knife clatters into the sink. “What are you trying to say?” Vinnie snarls suddenly.

 

Evan steps back, hands raised. “Easy, man. I just-”

 

“ _What_?”

 

“Did you kill someone?” Evan whispers.

 

“ _No_ ,” he snaps. “I didn’t kill anyone. I just brought them to it. It cut up Shaun Andersen with a chainsaw. Have I told you that before? I had to film it.”

 

“Jesus, Vinnie, it made you _film_ that shit? That’s sick.”

 

“Serves me right for filming so much though, doesn’t it?” Vinnie mutters, passing him a plate.

 

They sink into their thoughts as they make their way back to the living room. Neither man comments on the state of the sofa, the linear tears Evan’s just noticed scored deeply into the wallpaper. A big dog indeed, and his mind breathes out the image of that milk-white beast with its melting black eyes, skin translucent and shivering beneath his hands and fear rigid in every bone in its body. _“Filthy mutt,”_ HABIT always called it.

Evan thought it was just lonely.

 _Not all that’s been lonely._ He looks across at the other man, sandwich untouched, fading into the couch cushions like he’s already a ghost and just hasn’t noticed yet. “Brother?” Evan says.

 

Vinnie’s head turns but his body doesn’t move and he’s all bloodless skin and grey shadows and a mouth that seems to have forgotten how to smile somewhere along the way.

 

“You think it’s over?” Evan asks when he doesn’t say anything.

 

Vinnie shrugs. “I guess.”

 

It’s absurdly apathetic, like they’re discussing gas prices and not the seven years of hell they went through together – longer for Evan if he counts the nightmares preceding HABIT’s arrival. It feels strange to recall them now, to recall how terror made his blankets stick to his skin even as the dreams themselves were nothing like the things he’s seen now. The things he’s _done_ now. But maybe if there’s power in the sockets, water in the taps – food in the fridge, for God’s sake – then maybe this _is_ the end of it. Somebody broke a mirror and this was their seven years of bad luck, terrible luck, the worst fucking luck imaginable but they’ve lived through it now (some of them {two of them}), fresh start, reset and move on. In truth, he’s not that far off. But resetting is never as simple as it sounds.

 

“Your shirt is wet,” Vinnie informs him blandly.

 

“Uh, yeah. Heavy dew last night, I think,” Evan replies. “Not that I can remember but he left me out on the lawn.”

 

“You should change it.”

 

Evan makes a noise of agreement and tries not to let it sting that he’s being got rid of already. _Let it go, man. He just needs to readjust. We both do._ “I guess my clothes are still in my room?” When Vinnie doesn’t respond, he sighs and tries to lift his tone, tries to shake off the disappointment at Vinnie’s lacklustre demeanour.  “Well, I’ll be back in a bit. Will you be okay here?”

 

Vinnie’s nod is almost imperceptible but it’s enough for Evan for now. He stands, nearly ruffling Vinnie’s hair as he leaves. It’s an old habit, something he might have done before he had a parasite living in his brain and Vinnie had a parasite living in his house but the other man catches him with his wolf eyes and Evan catches himself, dropping his hand sharply before the movement looks like anything more than just a parting gesture. _Stupid._


	2. Wolf in Sheep's Wool

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> brick by brick  
> you build up a wall  
> but just when you think  
> you've built up it all  
> one little sound  
> makes everything fall

His room is a carefully-built reminder – a shrine, almost – of all that he’s lost, photographs and tapes and scraps of paper scratched with that familiar, jagged print littering every available surface. It’s also a mess, but a well-lit one.

Evan had almost forgotten about HABIT’s penchant for fairy lights.

He gathers some clean clothes and heads for the shower. Sets the temperature for high and tries to sear the sound of screaming from his skin beneath the hiss of scalding water. When the brownish stains of old blood are no longer embedded in his cuticles and Evan gives up on trying to wash them out of his mind, he wraps himself in his towel and stands there for a minute beneath the still-dripping showerhead. Steam curls around him, little fingers of white threading through his hair and tugging at his legs.

 Evan stands in front of the mirror as the condensation slowly clears, like the curtains of a stage being drawn back in a few ragged increments at a time. Maybe he’s trying to reconcile the image before him with himself, reidentifying with a body that hasn’t been his for a long time. Maybe he just doesn’t know what else to do. Mirror-Evan’s mouth pulls into what could be a weary smile. _Hello, I remember you._

_I remember you too._

 

They watch each other with the faint cautiousness of old acquaintances long-separated, unsure of where the boundaries now lie between them in the wake of many years.

 He’s still Evan when he wipes the blooms of fog from the bathroom mirror. Still Evan when he pushes his wet hair out of his face. Still Evan, just cut a little more sharply around the edges. He doesn’t know what he expected but the simplicity of his own face flushed with hot water and the shadow of a beard on his jaw is quietly reassuring.

 He looks at his hands. They’re netted with scars, harsh pink lines caging the paleness of his skin. They’re from HABIT mostly, of course – sharpening knives too quickly or messing around with the blades to terrify to some victim. It wasn’t _his_ body, after all. He didn’t care.

The scars are more dispersed further up Evan’s forearms, like the branches of snow-clad trees at sunrise. He twists in the mirror to look at his back; that soft place where his arm connects to his side, that soft place where Jeff, hysterical with agony and fear and the sight of opportunity, sunk in the blade of a steak knife as HABIT bent to pick up a canister of gasoline. Evan can remember the smell of it, like tarmac and cold nights; the warmth of pain bursting in red clouds through his shoulder and HABIT’s rage, thick and black and relentlessly consuming. He remembers the way his own brief hope crumbled into despair when HABIT broke Jeff’s legs with his mallet, one at a time, any chance of escape reduced to shattered pieces of bone.

 

* * *

 

Evan dresses slowly, the steam from the shower still clouding his mind with pillowy grey thoughts. His shirt stretches taut across his shoulders and his jeans hang a little too loose, but he pulls himself together with a belt and a shrug back in his room before looking more closely at the photos that have been left here.

 They’re both better and worse than he anticipated. Inky, X-shaped crosses steal the eyes of the subjects. It makes them seem a little more distant, more removed and although he’s in many of the pictures, Evan can’t recreate the sense of the breeze tugging his sleeves or the laughter, warm and easy in the air. He recognises them at least, tries to feel grateful that the pictures remain even if the feeling is lost. There’s Vinnie, grin bright in the dark of his beard. Alex with Sparky (the real one) cradled close to his chest, Jessie, Daniel, Nick…the names come to Evan as easily as the skim of his finger across the glossy surface of each photograph. He can pick out Jeff’s height, his curly hair, the constant presence of Jessa at his side.

 

Jeff’s smile goes with her when she disappears from the pictures.

 

They’re mostly frames from old videos, Evan realises, though some are from cut footage and others he’s never even seen before. Like this one.

There’s no date on the back so Evan has no idea when it was taken and the subjects clearly have no idea either. It’s a candid even a professional photographer would be proud of, the curtain they’re shooting past framing the image with soft white. The colours are careful, downy shades: gentle burgundy and navy offset by beige and cream and the pale smudge of the pair’s faces.

 Evan’s fingers tighten, creasing the surface. In that moment, he hates whoever took the photo, hates that unwanted third party who invaded their solitude with light flaring on hungry lens and finger pressed light and fast to the shutter like the hand of a thief.

 

They’re alone together in their heads at least, Steph moulded to him like she’d only do when no one else was around, sketchbook in hand and him at her side with his head tucked in the curve of her shoulder, sleeping peacefully. Her eyes have been carved out by the dogged black marker but she’s still his Damsel under the ink with that vehemence to be her own knight and her sharp tongue and the scent of wild briar that never quite left the warmth of her skin. It scares Evan that his mind can’t quite replicate the smell of her anymore, that subtle, dusty sweetness that filled the cavity in his chest and chased away the nightmares for a few short hours. He never even told Steph he loved her. Not properly. Not in the way that she understood, with words and letters and phrases all falling into poetic spirals across a page. No, he communicated it through his arm around her shoulders and his mouth on her mouth and a mumbled _“love you too”_ when she’d say it to him because feelings are awkward, bulky things that Evan’s never been able to give a real voice. He hates it, the way simple words would stick in the back of his throat like feathers so when the mania of HABIT’s grin was set into his face and his voice was all twisted up by HABIT’s snarl and when blood was seeping slowly, too slowly, from the hole HABIT had cut in Steph’s stomach as he looked her in the eyes and sneered “ _he never loved you anyway_ ,” she believed him.

 

Evan examines the photo for a moment longer before dropping it back into the pile where it sinks beneath a million other lacquered paper memorials. He doesn’t pick up another.

Something like instinct pulls him to the stairs and down the stairs and then he hears it on the last ones. A snatch of sound from a sallow throat, the click and stamp of blunt fingernails around the swirls of the wooden coffee table. Can’t see it but he’s done it before, time and time again, click and stamp around the timber grain and old coffee stains-

 

Evan misses the last step, his foot hitting the floor jarringly. The sound cuts short.

 

“ _Evan_ ,” Vinnie says. It’s less of a greeting and more of an acknowledgement. He’s casual, careful. (You didn’t hear anything.)

 

But the song continues in Evan’s head from where it stopped in his ears. Layers of memories rush to provide him with the sharp cry of the trumpets, the underlying thump of drums and that voice, thick like syrup but it’s not sweet anymore.

 

_Life is a beautiful thing_

_As long as I hold the string_

 

He never used to hate Sinatra. Can’t help but hate him now.

 

_I’d be a silly so-and-so_

_If I should ever let it go_

 

“Vinnie?” Evan says. “Everything alright, brother?”

 

He nods, eyes wide, guileless. But Evan’s seen the wolf in them. And, just like that, the wool vanishes from _his_ eyes.


	3. There's a Worm in that Apple

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> welcome to the first stage of grief  
> maybe you'll stay awhile or  
> maybe  
> you'll fade away

“Jesus Christ.” He needs to- he needs to- the floor catches him as he slumps. It’s still watching him. He’s going to be sick. Nausea squeezes his stomach, once, twice and then Evan gets a grip on himself. Kind of. He’s so full of hate that it hurts. “ _Fuck_ you.”

 

It blinks, has the nerve to look hurt. “What do you mean?”

 

“ _Get the hell away from him._ ”

 

Vinnie’s face splits in two. “Where’s my fuckin’ Oscar, huh? Took you long enough.”

 

It’s still real. “Jesus Christ,” Evan says again. He wishes it wasn’t. Wishes with everything he is. “Fuck. _Fuck._ I can’t believe this is happening.”

 

“Jealous?” HABIT inquires, the corner of his mouth flicking up lazily beneath the beard. In a completely different vessel but he still looks exactly like himself. Wolf in full force.

 

Evan doesn’t know how he didn’t catch on sooner.

 

“It’s okay if you are,” HABIT continues. “We spent a good few years together running around together tearing shit up.” He snickers. “Bound to get some separation anxiety.”

 

“Why?”

 

“ _Why?_ Buddy, it’s in the damn _name_. We’ve separated and you’re getting anxious. Simple as that, you-”

 

“No, why _Vinnie?_ He doesn’t deserve it. He did nothing wrong.”

 

HABIT snorts. “He did _everything_ wrong. Starting with _‘ooh, let’s make fitness videos.’_ I mean, who the fuck watches fitness videos?”

 

“Lots of people,” Evan mutters. He doesn’t even know why he’s bothering to reply. Some long-held pride that he hasn’t lost yet, maybe. It’s surprising. Thought he didn’t have any left after the baby- oh God, the baby, _the baby- no. Don’t think about that now._

 

“Okay,” HABIT says. “You want to know why. Course you do. You always do. How ‘bout I just needed a change?”

 

“Bullshit.”

 

He cackles. “Ya got me. I can’t tell you. Not yet. Gotta keep the readers in suspense, Evan. We’re not even at 3000 words yet.”

 

_“What?”_

 

“Nothing,” HABIT chirps, all sweet-voiced, and smirks like he’s just told some inside joke but no one else is there to hear it.

 

“No, it’s not,” he snaps. “You can’t just give a clear answer for once, can you? It isn’t _nothing_ , none of it is, but you always fucking do this, go around in circles with your stupid little riddles because this is all a _joke_ to you, isn’t it? It’s not a joke to me. It’s not a joke to Vinnie. It’s never been a joke to anyone but you.”

 

HABIT’s grin falls off. “Oh, shut the fuck up, Evan. I’ll tell ya something straight.” He drops to his knees so he’s at eye level with Evan. “Your friend’s already dead. I’m just not letting him die properly yet. Look.”

 

Evan looks away instead. He’s not going to let it break him. Not like this. Its lies are getting thinner, less believable. Maybe he can wait this out quietly. Maybe it’ll get bored and-

 

“Fucking _look_ ,” HABIT snarls, grabbing Evan’s wrist. His fingernails bite into Evan’s skin. “ _Look at me._ ” When he doesn’t move, HABIT yanks his hand up, presses Evan’s fingers to his skull. “Feel that, you whiny little shit?”

 

“ _…the hell is…_ ” Evan breathes because it’s all wrong. Where it should be hard, unyielding, the bone dips beneath his touch. It’s like the first circle of rot on an apple. Still, he doesn’t expect the bullet hole and when he feels it, he snatches his hand back, trying frantically to wipe the clinging wetness from his skin. “What have you done? What the fuck did you do to him?”

 

“Me?” It shrugs irreverently, unconcerned. “I ain’t done nothin’. But hey, listen. I want you to ask yourself this, buddy: _What happens when you leave a desperate man locked in a room with a loaded gun and no one else to shoot?_ ” HABIT stands up briskly as Evan lunges for him. “Spoiler: he’s not gonna shoot the lock to get out.”

 

“No.”

 

“ _No?_ What do you mean _no_ , Evan? You want me to tell you this is all some big fucking prank? Joke’s on you, bud. He’s not comin’ back.”

 

“Vinnie- he wouldn’t- _no._ ”

 

“ _Vinnie- he would- **yes** ,_” HABIT mimics emphatically. “Welcome to the first stage of grief, motherfucker. Let’s move on to-”

 

_Anger._ It’s already there, filling the hollowness in Evan’s limbs with a molten fury that propels him across the space between them. His shoulder barrels into HABIT’s knee as a harsh cry rips free from his throat and there’s a wet _pop_. Evan lets his momentum carry him forward, tumbling under the table and grabbing the edge of it to swing himself upright on the other side. His shoulder protests in unadulterated disbelief as he straightens, collarbone screaming and the right side of his chest buzzing with numbness in a way that feels fatal but he hopes is just windedness. He wheezes, trying to pull air back into his burning lungs. HABIT stares, first at him and then down at his misplaced patella. The pain in Evan’s chest suddenly doesn’t feel quite as bad.

 

“You _bitch_.” HABIT tries to take a step forward and stops as the dislocated joint gives way under his weight. “You’re gonna fucking fix this, you hear me? You better hope you know what you’re doing ‘cause if you don’t, I’ll rip off each of your legs like you’re a fly and then I’ll make you fucking crawl for your life on the stumps.”

 

Evan stumbles backwards into the kitchen, keeping his eyes on HABIT as he draws unsteadily around the corner of the table with an if-looks-could-kill expression. It tightens and becomes even more poisonous when Evan’s spine bumps lightly against the kitchen bench. He reaches back.

 

“Come on, man, there’s no point doing that.”

 

One of the blades kisses Evan’s fingertip, tasting his skin with sharp lips. His fingers run down a cool breath of polished steel until they find the handle. It’s his when he brings it in front of his body and HABIT stops.

 

“Your move,” Evan sneers.

 

“You know what I love about knives, Evan?” he says slowly. “Ya have to get up real close to use ‘em right.” He lowers himself into one of the dining chairs, settling like a coiled snake, and nods. “ _Your_ move, huh?”

 

Evan doesn’t blink, picks up another. This one’s longer, a foot of serrated steel, like a mouth full of teeth.

 

HABIT folds his arms and leans back.

 

The blades are hungry, keening and whining and gleaming in the light pushing through the kitchen blinds.

 

“Okay. _Okay._ I,” HABIT says, “am not the bad guy. I’m bad, sure; like a bullet – I’m made to kill, to seek out the warmth of living flesh and _macerate_ it.” His fist comes down on the table with force, startlingly loud in the quiet house.  “It’s all I exist for, see. My target. But big ol’ stick-in-the-mud, that lanky fucker, _he’s_ the guy with the gun. Now, like any guy with a gun, he has a whole lotta bullets for all kinds of different jobs. So he goes through his bag of shit which is full of vicious little entities like myself. Point the gun where you want the bullet to go and _bang!_ I end up here. Like I say, I’m a bad guy but I ain’t _the_ bad guy. Go get mad at him. It ain’t worth pissing me off, dude.”

 

“You think I give a shit?”

 

“But Evan,” HABIT drawls. “This is _Vinnie_. Your best bud Vin.” He gestures with Vinnie’s hand at Vinnie’s hollow face and Vinnie’s plaid shirt. “You’d be hurting him. He’d never do this if it was the other way 'round.”

 

“He’s dead,” Evan replies harshly. “He doesn’t matter anymore.” And it’s true in a way because the dead don’t feel anything and for a moment Evan wonders if _he’s_ dead because he can’t feel anything either but the magnetic beat of adrenaline singing in his throat. Bloodlust, a shivering melody that weeps and aches and draws the knives in shimmering arcs over his head. He blinks and they’re in his hands. He blinks and they’ve sunk deep into HABIT’s chest. He blinks and there’s blood, blinks and there isn’t.

Evan’s aware of the demon’s form looming in front of him and trying to claw its eyes out in a flurry of cornered animal panic but – _oh shit oh fuck oh god please no –_ Vinnie’s body is all of a sudden too tall and too strong and Evan’s ability to _think_ is unravelling faster than a ball of grey yarn. He stumbles back as the handle of one of the knives still buried in HABIT’s chest collides with his face.

 

“Don’t know why I fucking bother when I always end up having to tranquilise them anyway,” he hears it muttering somewhere to his left or his right or –


	4. If Only I Had the Words to Tell You How Much I Hate You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the worst pain pulls and is  
> pulled  
> from the depths of our own searing imagination and that-  
> that is exactly how he likes it

There are two distinct points after that, the first of which is the point of HABIT’s index finger digging into his skull

_and time contorts and distorts but it’s not real and he drowns and flies but he’s not real and the world swells and bulges around them all, row upon row of dead, dead, dead faces but none of it is real_

and the second of which is the point of HABIT’s index finger withdrawing from his skull. Nothing happens. The room billows, like lace curtains in a draught. And nothing happens. HABIT opens his mouth and sucks the morning out of the room like the glow from the end of a cigarette.

 

Evan wonders why he’s screaming. He wonders when he’ll stop screaming. He wonders _if_ he’ll stop screaming. He doesn’t, at least not until his voice cracks and crumbles into dust so no more sound comes out and nothing happens.

Nothing happens, because it’s already happened. It’s in the past, some shaky, wobbly, blurry three, four, five million seconds, minutes, years ago. At first, Evan thinks the lights have been turned off. But there’s a window high on the wall with the icy glimmer of stars beyond, aloof on their secure perch in the inconceivable heavens stretching out in every direction. For a moment, Evan can only stare. Then HABIT yanks him back into the house with the ugly whip-crack sneer of his voice.

 

“I’ve been thinkin’…”

 

There’s the hushed _click_ of a light switch and a glow the consistency of whey blooms uneasily on the walls. Evan is sprawled on a hard floor, grit embedding itself in his cheek and cold in his bones. HABIT grins mockingly, chest empty of knives and full of smug condescension.

 

“You know, you’re really not so good at this whole ‘updating the fans’ thing, are ya? And I get it, you’ve been busy... well, not _you_ so much ‘cause you’ve been curled up in your head like a bitch doing fuck all but in any case, they don’t know shit about the current _situation_. You ever seen an hourglass, Evan?”

 

Evan nods once but it’s enough to make everything tip out of focus. The chips of ice beading the night sky sway gently, like fairy lights caught by an errant breeze.

 

“Good,” HABIT says. “You got the little grains of sand, right? And then as time passes, more and more fall into the bottom of the hourglass? You all up to speed on that?”

 

 _What did you do to me?_ Evan can’t say because his voice is broken.

 

HABIT looks at him keenly like he’s heard anyway. “Every one of those people who watched your videos and read your posts and generally _gave something of a shit about your life_ are all grains of sand in your hourglass but there aren’t many left now because it’s been so long. They’ve lost hope.” His fingers catch suddenly under Evan’s chin and lift it slightly so they’re eye to eye in the thin pale light. “We gotta fix this, buddy.”

 

So that’s what he’s getting at. “Vi- Videos were m-” the words drag painfully up his throat and emerge in a wisp of powdery air. He coughs. “-more Vinnie’s thing.”

 

HABIT makes a derisive noise in the back of his throat and steps away, blocking out the window. “You’re not _listening_. What are you, a fucking moron? You know those are the last people who know you exist, right? Isn’t that what all you fuckers want – someone to remember you when you’re gone?”

 

Evan shrugs mutely.

 

“You’re gonna die, you know that? Tonight,” HABIT clarifies. “I’d drop the attitude if I were you. No one wants to remember that shit, do they?” He watches Evan, snickers at the jumble of broken syllables he produces in an attempt to reply. “So, how ‘bout it? You get a grand send-off like Jeff and Vin and anyone else I deemed important enough and I get us all some fucking _exposure_ because a man’s gotta get paid.”

 

Evan hesitates, wondering if his larynx can conjure up a passable “fuck you.” His hands, as it turns out, convey the message just as well.

 

HABIT laughs and smashes Evan’s face into the hardwood floor. He rolls him over with one boot and presses it into Evan’s chest until black spots grow like mould in his eyes and all that’s left is a thin point of light filled with HABIT’s leering face. And so it begins.

 

He starts with the middle joint of the middle finger on Evan’s right hand because “We’re gentlemen here, buddy. Can’t have rude gestures like that being thrown around.”

The knife he uses is thin and pointed, smooth and cold. “Carving knife,” HABIT whispers, like it’s a secret. Evan’s secrets spill from his mouth in harsh, nebulous cries, pried open by the knife when it twists between the bones of his finger.

“Hurts, huh?” HABIT says a moment later and yanks the loosened fingertip free with his teeth. He chews slowly, unhurriedly, his eyes gleaming. Evan can see strings of blood hanging from his beard like tinsel on a Christmas tree. HABIT’s jaw stops moving, as though he’s about to swallow, but he apparently changes his mind as something wet and sharp pelts Evan’s face.

 

He spits back, clutching at the last straws of his dignity and full of that mercurial anger that thrives on suffering.

 

“Make a good little snake, don’t you?” HABIT sneers and makes a show of wiping the blood from his mouth.

 

There’s something white at the corner of it and Evan tries not to think about how much it looks like a fragment of bone.

 

“You need more iron in your diet,” HABIT declares decisively. “I’ve heard spinach is good. Lentils. Kale.” His voice quietens and he leans in so close that Vinnie’s beard, thick and unkempt, scratches against Evan’s ear. “ _Babies_.”

 

What HABIT doesn’t anticipate is the headbutt.

What Evan doesn’t anticipate is the fact that his target’s brain cells are in hiatus, an extended period of frozen thoughts and feelings and emotions that have a bullet lodged somewhere in between them all, and so the parasite holding them there remains completely unharmed. Evan, on the other hand, teeters on the edge of consciousness for an infinite fraction of a second before he falls.

HABIT’s laughter chases him down into the dark.

 

 

 

_Again._


	5. Only Birds Still Sing After Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the wolf hunts  
> for food in winter and  
> for fun in summer
> 
> run, little rabbit  
> run while you can

His arm is throbbing when he wakes up and Evan knows it’s broken before he even looks at it. The sparse autumn branches of a plum tree stretch over his head and break up the wet grey sky like the cracks in fractured glass. He fell, he thinks. An idea of slippery bark and damp old leaves and the thorns that snagged on his shirt all rushing by floats hazily through his mind.

_Don’t climb the trees when it’s just rained_ , someone once told him sternly but he never listened to the warning.

 

A presence stirs at the edge of his vision, a pinkish blur that slowly manifests into a face. Evan panics, the memory of HABIT’s blood-smeared teeth as fresh and unknown as the pain in his arm, rolling away frantically like a bird with a broken wing.

 

“Hey- hey- _shh_ , Evan. It’s okay. You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

 

He blinks the tears from his eyes (when did those get there?) so he can see more clearly. It’s a familiar face, a kind face, compiled of soft wrinkles and gently greying hair and a smile that’s offered without compromise. A father’s face.

 

“Evan? What have you done to yourself, hm?”

 

“It’s broken,” Evan says mournfully. He holds out the offending limb, face crumpling with the pain.

 

“Silly boy,” Dr Corenthal murmurs. He helps Evan stand and they begin the slow journey back to the house. “What were you doing up there?”

 

“Tall man wanted us to build a hut.”

 

“I see.” Dr Corenthal sighs and for a second he looks paper-thin and frail, like all of his substance has been washed out in that one breath.

 

_He weakens every time. Not like you. Du bist so stark, mein Sohn._

 

Evan flinches at the voice. “What do you mean?”

 

Dr Corenthal gives him a weary look. “I didn’t say anything. Maybe we should try another round of medication.” He opens the front door and raises his voice as they walk down the hallway. “Honey, can you grab something warm for Evan? He was playing out the back and hurt himself. I think he’s going into shock. I’ll get him some painkillers.”

 

Mrs Corenthal appears in the doorway a moment later, a pile of blankets heaped in her arms and a small girl shuffling her feet impatiently behind her. Stephanie spots Evan and sticks her tongue out at him until he manages a small smile in return. She skips over to him in Mrs Corenthal’s wake and peers at his arm while the older woman fusses over him, draping soft, heavy blankets around his shoulders and muttering about the foolishness of children.

 

“How’d you do it?” Stephanie asks, wrinkling her nose at the distorted lump on his forearm. “It looks weird. Does it hurt if I poke it?”

 

White hot pain blinds him for a minute and he screams.

 

“ _Stephanie!_ ” Mrs Corenthal admonishes. “Are you okay, Evan?”

 

He nods shakily while Stephanie haughtily declares that she only answers to “Steph” now. She’s been trying to make the change happen for a while but no one in the home has caught on (apart from the tall man, obviously).

 

They all turn as Dr Corenthal walks in. He’s carrying a pair of hedge clippers, a frown creasing the skin behind his glasses.

 

“I’ve just got off the phone with a doctor friend of mine,” he says gently. “He says we need to amputate your finger to bring the swelling down or you could lose the whole limb.”

 

“What?” Evan whispers. That doesn’t make sense. _Does it?_

 

In the background, Stephanie starts crying.

 

Mrs Corenthal rubs his shoulder consolingly. “I’m so sorry, sweetie.”

 

“But which one?!” Evan cries suddenly, starting to panic. He looks down at his hands, two pale stars curled in the navy blanket he’s been wrapped in. “I like all my fingers! I don’t want to lose one!”

 

“It’s for the best,” Dr Corenthal soothes. “Give me your hand, Evan.”

 

In the end, Mrs Corenthal has to carefully pry it from where it’s curled in the blanket. Her own hands are warm and calloused and large as they envelop his, which gives him a little courage.

 

“Here you go then,” he says, quickly sticking out his arm and looking away.

 

“Good boy.”

 

Evan feels the cold metal mouth of the clippers fit around his finger. The blades creak faintly, audible only in the silence, and then much louder: a crunch.

He gasps as something hits the floor and then he falls through Mrs Corenthal’s arms as his legs give way.  A hand, he doesn’t know whose, clamps around his neck as the carpet turns to hardwood beneath his back. The last thing he sees is the tall man, always the tall man, black suit stretching up the walls and white face painted flat on the ceiling.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, bitch,” HABIT sneers. “That was cute.” He tosses the hedge clippers into the shadows somewhere and pulls Evan up effortlessly, his grip around his neck tight but not yet unbearable. “Nice little taste of old times before the real fun begins, huh?”

 

At least Evan can still breathe.

 

“I like this,” HABIT confides. “All this- all this _power_. I can feel every bit of your life in here. There’s your pulse in here, and here…” – the fleeting press of an index finger – “Jumpy! D’ya wanna run, Evan? Is this a scared little rabbit heart beating in your throat?” He leans in, air whistling through his nostrils and fanning Evan’s face. “Wouldn’t know it to look at you though, would ya? Evan doesn’t give a shit, that’s what I thought. You care a little, huh? Don’t wanna die just yet. That’s good. That’s _real_ good.”

 

Evan closes his eyes and tries to pretend he’s dreaming. In a distant, abstract way, the pain in his hands isn’t as bad as he’d thought it would be. It’s nice to have something to focus on that isn’t fingernails biting into his skin, isn’t the monster leering at him through his best friend’s dark eyes. He wonders how Vinnie put up with this.

 

_But then he didn’t, did he?_

 

HABIT squeezes his throat until Evan opens his eyes again. “I can feel it when you swallow too, you know that? All these little ridges of your trachea push out as your brain registers something restricting your air flow. Maybe I could restrict it a little more…?”

 

Evan can no longer breathe. His mouth gapes desperately, crying out for a snatch of air to cool the fire rearing its head in his lungs. Bruises writhe beneath his skin, struggling to burst free. He lashes out, catching HABIT loosely across the face.

 

HABIT laughs in delight. “ _There’s_ your fucking fight! There it is!”

 

Evan is slammed against a wall, one of the walls, any wall, before he can land another blow. The pain stuns him for a minute; violet spears in his back, violet clouds in his eyes. _He’s going to die, he’s dying, he’s de-_

The pressure around his neck eases slightly and oxygen slides down his throat as his feet brush the floor again.

 

“Not yet.” His tormentor grins. “You think I’ll let you off that easy? _Really?_ You know me better than that.”

 

_Unfortunately I do._ Evan knows there’s no easy way out as well as he knows the drumbeat panic in his chest. No quick escapes or quick deaths. He’s well and truly caught in the spider’s web; well and truly, completely and utterly _fucked_. And he almost doesn’t care. _Almost_.

 

HABIT shrugs as best as one can with a hand wrapped around somebody else’s throat and tears him open from sternum to stomach with a knife.

 

Evan doesn’t scream. He gasps, with all the breathless incredulity of a man who can’t quite believe that such horrors are happening to _him_ , and not someone else trapped behind a television screen.

 

“Damn, he’s good,” HABIT says, maybe to no one in particular, or maybe he’s talking to the cameraman with the hollow eyes and the sharp cheekbones Evan has just seen standing in the darkest part of the room. He doesn’t even notice the man at first, so concealed in the shadows that he must have surely made them his home. No, it’s an errant glint of light catching on his lens that gives him away, and slowly the dark shape behind the camera materialises for Evan’s eyes to see. There’s something about him, something in the stoop of his silhouetted shoulders and the thinness of his neck that is not quite unfamiliar.

Evan remembers he’s bleeding profusely when burning heat begins sliding down his legs. The wound grins toothlessly up at him, dark and red and ugly. He doesn’t

 

_scream_.

 

HABIT’s grin is dark and red and ugly, but it’s full of Vinnie’s teeth so it hurts more.

 

Evan stumbles back when he is released, stumbles onto a precipice of blank shock that tugs at him, pulls him to the edge and pushes him away again. There’s a darkness beyond that he’s only just aware of, a coldness that hums like waves in a sea-cave.

HABIT must sense his lapse because he prods him until Evan moves outside his head again. “Hey, thanks for changing your shirt, man. I’ve always liked that Mötorhead one.”

 

Evan barely flinches when he takes the ragged fabric from his shoulders. It hangs heavy and dripping from his fist, red slipping through his fingers to the floor.

 

“You stay right there for me, okay? Don’t fucking move.” HABIT frowns at him in a way that pulls up the middle of his brows and it’s so _Vinnie_ that Evan is torn in half all over again. He winds the shirt almost gently around Evan’s torso, pulling it tight and tucking the loose ends in like a bandage. “I don’t want this little fish to be gutted just yet.”

 

The blood on Evan’s stomach withers and dries thick and tacky under HABIT’s touch until his skin is stiff with it.

 

“Be good.” HABIT flicks off the light and lifts his hand in a brief mockery of a salute as he walks out of the room with the cameraman shuffling blindly after him. The door shudders behind them, rocking in its frame.


	6. Breathe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> let your lungs open  
> pull in crisp dreams of the night  
> rest easy one last time

Evan does stay there at first, swaying and cold and besmirched with his own blood. But the emptiness of the room cries out when he cannot, relights something in him that should be dead already; an animal urge to flee while he can even as his humanness reminds him that there’s no hope.   

He never was very good at listening to that side of himself anyway. 

The door is locked when Evan tries it. It’s almost flattering that HABIT doesn’t trust him to stay put, even like this. Pain travels in waves through his gut with every movement, the body’s warning to its bearer that it will tear irreparably if he so much as breathes out the wrong way. In his head, the wound is stretched taut, stomach heaving against a gossamer-thin layer of muscle. He presses his right thumb into the space where his middle finger used to be until the images in his mind dissolve. 

The window’s next, but it’s much higher than he realised now that he’s doubled over right beside it. Evan frowns, looking for something to raise himself closer to the sill. His eyes have adjusted to the gloom enough that he can make out a mattress with russet blooms spreading across it leaning on the wall. In front of the mattress (he doesn’t look at the words smeared Manson-style behind it) is a plastic yellow child’s chair that makes the knot inside him squeeze tighter, and beside that a battered wooden desk carries that distinctive mark of the house – heavy, dark stains and scars carved deep into its mottled brown skin. It’s better than nothing. 

Evan pushes it beneath the window with a little more effort than he anticipated, pausing every few seconds to gasp for breath as he works. There’s no catch on the window when he’s finally huddled up on the desk beside it and in a moment of desperation, he smashes his elbow through the glass. The pain that spikes up his arm scarcely registers as a cool breeze and the distant sound of a neighbour’s dog barking blow across his face. Voices rebuke, regard, revel in each other. A million darkened rooftops spill away in every direction, interspersed here and there with the slow burn of streetlights and tree branches that crawl blackly into the sky. There’s a world out here, a world he’d forgotten existed. Evan opens his mouth and the frozen air trickles in. The night tastes sweet and free, limitless.  

 

He lets himself fall. 


	7. The Fifth Stage of Grief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> run no more  
> little rabbit  
> run no more

The wind is filled with shards of ice that cut into his shoulders as he plunges towards the ground. Something else – a branch, maybe – whips across his bare back. Evan tightens his arms around himself, braces for the impact. When it comes, his head fills with clouds.

 

_Thud._

 

It’s the sound a basketball makes when it strikes the surface of the court.

 

_Thud._

 

It’s the sound of a missed step on a staircase, foot jarring against the ground.

 

_Thud._

 

It’s his shoulder driving into hardwood boards with sickening inconceivability.

 

“ _What_?” Evan mutters as he sits up, sees the walls caging him in again. And then, “No. No _._ No, please, I can’t- no. _No_.” It’s all he can say as his throat closes over.

 

The first stage of grief is denial. The second is anger. He grieves for his freedom in the way that dying men who don’t want to die do: by fighting it. This time, the glass barely resists his elbow. His skin hangs from his arm in ribbons that don’t bleed. Nothing bleeds anymore.

 

_Thud._

 

Now, the fall is shorter, the ground harder. Second time not lucky, so Evan stops to think. The windowsill is cold when he grips it, peering over the edge into the darkness below. Moonlight reaches through sparse tree cover, turning patches of the lawn silver. It’s _definitely_ grass. He draws his gaze downward, where anything he might see is lost to the house’s shadow. Not that he knows what exactly he’s looking for anyway, some great trapdoor, maybe, an interdimensional ingress waiting patiently to spit him back into the room. Something else catches his eye, a dark line sliding up a great grey expanse of wall. It’s a rope, he thinks, following its path with his eyes until-

Like a dream, the clouds part and the end of the rope is a bloated fibre snake coiled on the floor. He stares at it blankly for a moment before logic kicks him in the stomach and he grabs it.

The desk is too wide to fit out the window, so he ties the rope around it as an anchor. A prayer leaves his lips for the first time in years, though now he’s not sure who it’s directed to. It twists away from his mouth like smoke and dissipates into the cold air, unheard. Evan’s already forgotten it existed. The rope is rough in his hands as he carefully lowers himself down the wall, feet slipping on smoothly painted wood. _Seven years. Seven years and now you’re free._ He laughs then, a strangled, manic sound, dangling there from the rope like a spider with the breeze in his hair and his breath rattling hoarsely in his lungs.

 

_Thud._

 

The rope dissolves through his fingers like a cloud of air exhaled on a cold night.

The walls are closer. He swears they are, would swear on his life if it wasn’t worth so little at this point. They lean in and he has to _run_ , rabbit-heart bouncing off his ribs. He keeps running and falling and picking himself back up and running and running and running until the _thud_ is a heartbeat keeping him alive as the precipice tries to swallow him whole and _maybe maybe maybe_ this time he’ll get lucky, this time he’ll keep falling away from this place, falling forever out of minds and hearts until he’s nothing but a forgotten speck of dust tumbling through the darkest recesses of the universe and he’s _safe from here_.

The door slams loud enough to stop his heart. Evan wishes it had. HABIT sucks his teeth once, sharply. “You know, Evan. Funny thing. I have a _distinct recollection_ of sayin’ something to you when I went out of here. You remember that? You remember what I said, buddy?” His voice is rising in pitch, high and brittle and dangerous.

 

Evan bites his lip and tries to remember. He really does.

 

It’s not enough.

 

“I said don’t fucking move. _Don’t fucking move._ You hear that? You fucking deaf?! Don’t fucking move, I said. And what’d you do, huh? What the hell did you do?” He’s screaming now, spitting words right into Evan’s face in a way that would be terrifying if the clouds inside him weren’t muffling everything. **_“You fucking moved, didn’t you?!”_**

 

Something bursts in Evan’s head when HABIT throws him at the floor and when blood fills his mouth, it’s real. He thinks. The lightbulb swings slightly above him, stirred by the breeze from the broken window. He wonders when it turned on.

 

“Brought you a gift,” HABIT says when he’s satisfied with the amount of blood coming out of Evan’s face. He delves into his pocket and holds up something small and metallic that catches the light. Evan rolls onto his side, so the blood doesn’t choke him anymore. It drips sluggishly from the corner of his mouth and pools wetly beneath his cheek.

 

The gift is a fishhook, or rather three fishhooks. Evan stares at them blankly.

 

 _“You’re welcome!”_ The sing-song tone dissolves into snarling laughter as the fishhooks plunge through the skin of his belly. “That’ll hold you together for a bit. C’mere, little fish.” Stepping back, HABIT tugs on the nearly-invisible line attached to the hooks.

 

Evan groans, slowly sitting up. The room lurches violently around him and he braces for an impact that never comes. Vertigo then, not one of HABIT’s little tricks.

 

“ _Up_ ,” the demon commands. “Properly, you lazy shit. I’ve got a whole bag of these to get through.” There’s a metallic rattle from somewhere beyond the fog.

 

His legs won’t hold him. No matter how hard he tries, they buckle as soon as they take his weight. Evan’s reminded distantly of falling onto wet grass, crumpling like a paper doll. Maybe it was this morning. Maybe it was last week. Maybe it never happened at all. Everything is cold, too cold, and he can’t even remember how he got here or when he got here or how long he’s been here. Time seems too abstract a concept for him to grasp now, something that does not exist here in this room. The stars in the window haven’t changed and he thinks maybe they’re painted on. This world moves too slowly to be real. He might be swimming.

 

 _Alex,_ a cold little voice cries suddenly from somewhere in the fog. _It’s Alex._

 

Evan lifts his head, frowns in bewilderment. _What’s Alex?_

“You won’t be needing these anymore,” HABIT says.

 

_Alex Koval with no more dreams and a camera in his hands._

_Alex filming?_ Evan squints up at the sharp cheekbones and the thin neck and he can see that they’re right.

 

HABIT’s cane knife (where the hell did he get that from?) comes down hard on his knee. It sinks in halfway, lodges between the bones of his leg. He doesn’t scream, but maybe he shoul- _don’t look don’t look don’tlookohgodithurtssobadlydon’tlookatit_

Evan closes his eyes tightly as HABIT roughly finishes the job. There’s a sound worse than a finger hitting the floor and if he could move he’d cover his ears. He can’t move. If he moves, he’ll feel it.

The second one goes with more ease; two swings and Evan will never walk again. A million and one frames of him hiking in the woods with his friends slip over the precipice like water down a drain.

He can’t move. Still, still, still, rabbit in the headlights, only the car’s already run him over and his eyes are filled with the afterthought.

 

HABIT leans in. “Do you know why I’m doing this?” A sharp bark of laughter. “Of course you don’t. Poor little clueless Evan. Someone make the man a GoFundMe.”

 

“Who broke the mirror?” Evan whispers hoarsely.

 

More laughter. It echoes through him like there’s water in his ears.

 

“You think this was just your bad luck?” HABIT sneers. “You’re pretty fucking egocentric, huh? This isn’t about _you_ , bud. You’re part of a cycle. A cycle that has to take place for other things to take place so the world can keep going round as it should lots of reiteration _blah blah blah_ very long boring explanations that I’m not even gonna _touch_. I’ll say this, though; death brings us closer to the end.” He pauses. “Not my death, of course. Yours.”

 

There’s silence as HABIT gives Evan a searching look. “What? You’re not gonna say anything? No ‘ _Oh, please, HABIT, I’m begging you. Please don’t kill me_ ’? Nothing?”

 

“No point.”

 

“Ha! Smart man. You always were my favourite. What else should we do before you go?”

 

Evan’s too tired to lift his hand so he just nods in the cameraman- in Alex’s direction. “Release him.”

 

HABIT’s eyes widen, black with malice. “ _Release_ him? Release my most loyal sycophant?”

 

“He’s not- that’s not Alex. Give him himself back.”

 

“That’s not Alex,” HABIT agrees as slowly and meditatively as the way he’d chewed Evan’s finger. “What are you gonna do about it?”

 

“Take it back,” Evan whispers, and he’s so, so tired that he could almost forget why he’s still fighting if it weren’t for Jeff’s face hanging solemnly in the back of his mind.

 

_Save him._

 “Take back whatever you did.”

 

“Don’t be so selfish, man – you don’t know what he wants. You don’t know what he _likes._ ” He turns, so he’s directly addressing the cameraman, and raises his voice dramatically. “Rabbit 231. I have received a request for your release. Would you like to accept this good man’s proposal?”

 

Alex is still for a moment and then his head jerks up like he’s been electrocuted. Evan recoils. His eye sockets are empty, black tar striping his face in glistening tracks. His mouth opens and shuts, silent as butterfly wings. Then the howling starts, that low, inhuman cry of a tomcat in some forgotten alley with algae stealing up cracks in the walls and torn plastic garbage bags suffocating the pavement. The camera in his hand falls and the pieces of glass that spill from its broken lens look, just for a moment, like stars.

 

“Oh _dear_ ,” HABIT snickers. “I think that’s a no.”

 

Cold fingers tear holes in his skin and finally, _finally_ , Evan screams. Frankenstein’s monster, dead as it is alive, _I’m sorry Jeff I tried we all tried_ and in the background, he can hear HABIT laughing and laughing and laughing. The waves are no longer confined to their sea-cave and they surge forward to take a piece of him for themselves. Evan thought it would be silent- he thought _this_ would be silent, drifting down into the dark with nothing in his ears but it is a chaos he never dreamed existed. Sound fills him until his feels his skin crack like glass and suddenly Evan accepts it.

 

there’s not enough left of him to cling to


	8. Epilogue, If You Can Call It That

The darkness is everywhere. It moves like ink, thick and sluggish and full, pressing into his pores until he's heavy with it. It unnames him. Uncreates him. He is the dark and the dark is him.

The unknown man opens his mouth but his words swell out of shape and drift away like bubbles of air underwater. He watches sadly as they ripple through the dark, and wonders if they'll ever reach the surface. In his mind's eye, they burst free atop an ocean of ink, glowing notes spreading like an oil slick. But above his words, there is another dark, an empty dark, and it swallows his words whole. The unknown man is not even an echo. Yet he is still here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand that's it! Thank you for actually making it to the end! Not that I doubted your willpower or sheer determination to chew through my petty words, but I've not shared writing with the internet before so the chances of it being awful were always rather high. I hope it wasn't for you, at least.


End file.
